All by myself..

Yesterday, I got a message from a girl in the year below me asking me for advice about finding a flat in Paris. It was mostly just the standard 'how expensive is it/how can you find apartments/where's best to live' kind of questions, but one really struck me - 'how have you coped with living alone? Isn't it a bit horrid?' Its not the first time someone has asked me that, and I am sure it won't be the last. In the words of Ms Bradshaw 'later that day, I go to thinking...'

I live alone here for one main, and very simple reason. I didn't know anyone else who was coming here who I liked enough to live with. Of course, a week after moving in I rekindled a wonderful friendship with the marvellous S, who I was at 6th form college with, and had I known that she was going to become my constant companion and that we would get on so well that we rarely do things without each other, we would, in all likelihood, have lived ensemble and happily ever after. As it was, I didn't know this, so thought I'd do Paris like a Parisian, and live alone in a cute, neat studio, with all my shoes and books for company. Its had it's ups, and its had it's downs, but overall I think I can safely say that I have adored it. I have always loved my own company, but of course living alone in a foreign city is never as simple as that.

Last year, living in a house with 4 other girls, I used to love closing my door, switching off my phone, and zoning out with one of L's SATC DVDs or a trashy novel. But that was always an active choice - I didn't have to be alone at that moment in time, I just wanted to be. Here, it is sort of the opposite. I am definitely alone more than I am in company. At first, I had one friend. Now I have... three. Its not that I haven't met people here, its just I haven't really liked any of them, and the idea of spending my precious free time and hard-won money in the company of people I fundamentally disliked seemed far worse than spending time in my own, exclusive company. But that's not meant to imply that I have a wonderfully assured self-confidence or am arrogant enough to enjoy my own company above anybody else's. Far from it in fact. I think this is probably the crux of the 'down' parts of living alone. You can't run away from yourself, or merrily bury yourself in a girlfriend's boy drama, because the only person there is you. And therefore, you start to face up to you - who you are, what it actually means to be you, what annoys you most about yourself..... before this descends into psychobabble, I suppose what I am trying to say is that living alone is, for me anyway, the most effective and lasting way of realising who you are as a person. Not just the best bits that your friends always compliment you on, and not just the worst bits that you know deep down inside are stopping you from getting on with that long-cherished dream, but the whole of you. The little things, like how if I don't clean or do the washing up, it will just sit there. Forever. Until I actually do it. With no one to make excuses to. The fact that if I am in a bad mood, rather than shaking it off, I will wallow for hours, combing facebook for pictures of all the fun other people are having while I am cooped up alone, with no invitations to anything. I can do this for whole days at a time if the mean reds are particularly bad. The fact that sometimes, nothing, not a Nancy Mitford or a Jilly Cooper or an episode of SATC or Women's Hour can cheer me up like a brisk walk down the Seine can.


If I had the chance to do this all again, I'd still live alone - though admittedly having two friends living two minutes away down a parallel street means that I am never far from company should I desperately crave it. Now I am a lady of leisure, with no job, no commitments, and alot of time to do exactly what i want, living alone has really come into its own. This morning, I got up, danced around to glee for half an hour, ate standing up staring at my wardrobe, talked to myself loudly whilst doing so, and now I am happily sitting browsing blogs in a pair of rattu old leggings and a tank top. Some people say, when I mention that I live here alone, that they could 'NEVER' live alone. I think they are cowards. It is brilliant. Seriously scarily grown-uppily brilliant. In a foreign city, I can highly recommend it. Just remember the following things - skype is a life-saver, bunting and photos can make anywhere feel like a home, and buying flowers for oneself has the most unbelievably cheering effect.

All from we heart it